JONATHAN EDWARDS, SINNERS IN THE HANDS OF AN ANGRY GOD AND OTHER WRITINGS (BOOK REPORT 28)

GABOURY’S
CRITICAL BOOK REPORT

The selection contains four sermons, An Essay on the Trinity, and the Freedom of the Will. This is a very odd selection. Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God is as mighty a sermon as the
title promises. And it was mightily used by God to awaken sinners: “Those of
you that finally continue in a natural condition, that shall keep out of hell
longest will be there in a little time! your damnation does not slumber” (p.
16.) The Presence is felt in that sermon more than in the other three, though
all are good. The essay on the trinity, by today’s standard, is also good, but
it does not compare well with so much else that Edwards has written. The
rhetoric is complicated, and it is a real pain to decipher.

The Freedom of
the Will must be about as abstract and esoteric as any theorem in
existence. I have little doubt that Edwards is right and the Arminian is wrong.
But who is sharp enough to follow Edwards down such narrow corridors of reason?
Like most philosophy, this must be gotten through only by the stubborn reader.
Who can labor through this without leaving so many parts unknown? The
difference between Necessity and necessary, and between impossible and
Impossibility, are these necessary to state and possible to fathom? (p. 125.)
About Edwards’ philosophical subtleties, John Erskine says this in his Advertisement (1774) to Edwards’ History of Redemption: “the abstruse
nature of the subject, or the subtle objections of opposers of the truth, led
him to more abstract and metaphysical reasonings.” (He is not speaking there, of the History of Redemption, though.) Edwards’ Freedom of the Will is the domain of “divines, metaphysicians, and
logical writers,” as Mr. W. the Editor calls them in a note (not in this
edition.) This being the case, do we not require the full disclosure of what Edwards worked so hard to prove before we
can hope to grasp more than a few slivers of what he meant? When Volume One of Edwards’ Works providentially came into my hands,
I discovered that I had struggled to understand the Freedom of the Will with only part of the treatise to read! Thanks
Nelson Publishers!

Over twenty percent of the Will is missing in Sinners in
the Hands of an Angry God and other Writings by Thomas Nelson Publishers.
There is no indication of omission in the Publisher’s Preface, and none in the
Introduction—yet the Will’s Preface,
its Footnotes, even vast Sections of
the grand Treatise itself, and the Appendix, and even the Conclusion—are all
omitted! On Nelson’s final page, it says, The
End, as if to cause the impression that we’ve just read the full version.
With something as important and hard to comprehend as the operation of man’s
will, by which our choice for evil or good is made in consequence to eternity,
what are we to make of Nelson’s deletions? Even the conclusion is dropped from
the Farewell Sermon, which is where
Edwards extends his love to that guilty, ungrateful congregation that
dishonorably voted him out. It’s as if this selection of abridged material is
painstakingly calculated to give the reader a low opinion of Edwards. I
recommend Hendrickson’s edition of his Works.

For help in understanding Edwards’ treatise on the
will, I recommend the essay by William Cunningham: Calvinism, and the Doctrine of Philosophical Necessity. This may be
found in The Reformers and the Theology
of the Reformation (1862.)

(One’s level of piety, whether devotional or practical, depends much on knowledge being either learned or misconceived. In these analyses we...

WHAT'S IN THE ARCHIVE

In the archive you will find extensive, thorough reviews of sermons delivered by pastors in Red Deer. These reviews, or analyses, are given to represent the content of what is being taught in the churches of this city and the manner in which this is done. Currently, there are over two dozen analyses on this site; they have subjected the pastors of 8 churches to the test of Scripture. Jump into the blog and into your Bible to see how true to Scripture your pastor's teachings and methods are. Scroll down to our book lists, make some prayerful choices from there, and go shopping at Amazon.ca or some place like that. The best books to read are not generally sold at your local Christian book store. Solomon's advice to get understanding is terrible advice to ignore.

TOP TEN BOOKS FOR HARD READERS

(2) HISTORY OF THE REFORMATION OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY (J. H. MERLE D'AUBIGNE, 1846)

(3) PENSEES (BLAISE PASCAL, 1669; 1844)

(4) OLD TESTAMENT BIBLE HISTORY (ALFRED EDERSHEIM, 1876-1887; 1890)

(5) EXPOSITION OF THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS (ROBERT HALDANE, 1839)

(6) THE REFORMERS AND THE THEOLOGY OF THE REFORMATION (WILLIAM CUNNINGHAM, 1862)

(7) DISCUSSIONS, VOL 3 (R. L. DABNEY, 1892, 1897)

(8) STUDIES IN THEOLOGY (B. B. WARFIELD, 1932)

(9) MEMOIRS OF JONATHAN EDWARDS (SERENO E. DWIGHT, ed., c. 1834)

(10) THE CITY OF GOD (AUGUSTINE, 426)

MANY FALSE PROPHETS ARE GONE OUT INTO THE WORLD

1 JOHN 4.1

ABOUT WOLVES IN SHEEP'S CLOTHING

WE ARE NOT IMPLYING THAT ALL SERMONS REVIEWED HERE ARE THE WORKS OF WOLVES (FALSE TEACHERS) INSTEAD OF SHEEP (TRUE PROFESSORS.) BUT IF 'MANY FALSE PROPHETS' ARE GONE OUT INTO THE WORLD, THEY MUST RESIDE SOMEWHERE, AND IT SHOULD BE NO SURPRISE TO FIND A FEW OF THESE IN RED DEER. THEREFORE OUR WARNING IS JUST, AND THE APOSTLE WOULD APPROVE OUR QUOTING HIM. A WOLF MAY BE DISTINGUISHED FROM A SHEEP BY THE KIND OF GOSPEL HE PREACHES, WHETHER TRUE, OR FALSE. THIS IS THE CHIEF DISTINCTIVE.